Youth Philosophy 1

Speaker 2: Well, good to have you all here with us tonight, having all these kids up here kind of makes me want to go back to kids church on Sunday nights. Uh, some of you don't know what that is. We had kids church during the pandemic and did all kinds of fun kid things on Sunday evenings and had a really good time with the young people scared off a lot of the adults. But, uh, anyway, it was just like a big junior church. Anyways, glad that you're here with us tonight. You're in for a blessing with the kids being here, and we can't wait to hear them sing. Let's go to law and order prayer. Ask his blessing on our time together. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the opportunity. We have to be together again or ask that you would bless the service tonight. May you be honored and glorified by everything that is said and done for us in Jesus name, I pray. Amen. Thank you. May be seated. It is good to have you here with us. Got a couple of announcements for you. And who is that back there? Gino. Gino, you're going to have to help me out. I left my announcement sheet, so you throw those up and I'll just make a quick mention of them as we go. June 13th, church anniversary. Sixty six years of ministry here in the Collinsville area. So we're going to praise the Lord about all that he's done, especially highlight the things that have taken place over the last year. Next vacation, Bible school, June 7th, through the 11th, 9:00 to noon, you can register your kids online at Sebti Church. It's still misspelled Jeno misspelled church. No, she didn't make that or on our Facebook page. And there are also fliers located at the Welcome Desk to invite folks to VBS. How many how has anyone already handed out a VBS invitation? All right, very good. OK, so that's a few there's plenty of fliers, so the rest of you go grab a flier before you leave and just give it out. Somebody one person drop it in the, uh, I don't know, on the ticket when you pay for your meal afterwards or something, but invite somebody to vbs to me a great time. We're looking forward to it. Uh, go ahead. Hit the next one. That's it. I can't be it. All right, we got retreads this Friday from 10 to one. I know there was some talk on the Retreads Facebook group about when it is, but it is this Friday from ten to one. That's our senior adult ministry. And if you would like to be a part of that, I'm good. That's OK. Uh, it's it's a great time. They play some games and they meet for a potluck lunch, and they would love to have you there for that. All right. Now, I have been told that there are some kids coming up to pray. So it was no sing. Oh, they're coming up to sing. I thought they said they were praying. I was like, OK, I'm going to pray. All right. Well, this time I'm going to sit down and our kids choir is going to take over.

Unidentified: Let us see the. The slightest thing about a story he wrote Love his genesis, second Exodus, Leviticus numbers. Ronneby. My legacy, history, history. History has seen a lot of history, Mr.. Jews and judges and the

Speaker 1: story

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Speaker 1: and second chronicles,

Unidentified: which give us the baggage that Amaia. The queen. Poetry, poetry, poetry, anything about poetry, the songs that you say to other patients on the day? Provides otherwise. Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.

Speaker 1: Major Robert, major profit slashing.

Unidentified: Greatest of my life and my. Lamentations in your church, they're gone. When I see Robin

Speaker 1: Roberts

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Speaker 1: name, I like my Malikai. Work on your attitude,

Unidentified: the way you know, you should put away those selfish thoughts, think only a good check on your motives. Make sure they pass. And the Lord will help you to do your very best.

Speaker 1: You've got to work on your attitude in all you do and say. Look for opportunities to practice them each day. People around you are watching you do some work on your attitudes, joy, gratitude, yes, work on your attitude to today.

Speaker 3: Round of applause where they go, boys and girls, as they're finding their way back to their seat, we're going to sing a song in your hymnbook. But is be thou my vision? Let's all stand.

Speaker 1: Be thou my vision. Without my vision

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Speaker 1: Now, my first thought by day by. Waking or sleeping, my presence. I like me now, my

Unidentified: wrist and my. I never will be. And now with me.

Speaker 1: Art thou my great father? Bruce. Now, with

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Speaker 1: eye

Unidentified: catching up. When victory is

Speaker 1: won,

Unidentified: may I read Seven's Joy

Speaker 1: Ride and some part

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Speaker 1: Still be my vision.

Speaker 3: I'll have number one hundred and forty four, what a day that will be. I'm excited for that day. We'll see Jesus face to face.

Speaker 1: Let's bring it out. What a day that will be. There is coming a day when. Predicts outcome. No more. Clouds in the sky, no more tears in the eye. All this means for ever more on that, wiping all the joy. What a day, glorious day that will be. One at. Maybe with my Jesus, see, when I. Come on, is this the one who say. By his race, and he takes my hand and leads me through the promised land one

Unidentified: day or yesterday, that will be.

Speaker 1: There will be no sorrow there, no more. It's to bear no

Unidentified: more sickness, no pain, no more.

Speaker 1: And forever will be the one who died for me one day. Glorious day. At. Faith in my Jesus, I shall see. And I. Upon his face, the one who saved by his race, and

Unidentified: he takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised

Speaker 1: land one day, glorious day. That will be.

Speaker 2: And men are getting ready to take up the offer and we're going to sing that last verse one last time, brother Matt, you got it in you coffin a little bit. Be all right. All right. Well, the men get ready to take up the offer. Listening the last verse to get.

Speaker 1: There'll be no sorrow there. No more. Stay there, no more sickness,

Unidentified: no pain, no more body over

Speaker 1: there, and forever

Unidentified: I will be with the one who died for me

Speaker 1: one day, glorious day. That will be. What a day that will be when my Jesus, I shall see and I look upon his face on same day by his face when he takes

Unidentified: me by the hand and leads me through the promised land

Speaker 1: one day, glorious day. That will be. A.

Speaker 2: All right, good singing this evening and I will have the ushers come forward at this time, I did know that the kids were singing tonight. I just thought one of them said, we're going to pray first. And so that's I got confused anyways, not hard to do on a Sunday evening. Confuse the pastor, so. All right. Appreciate all those of you that are faithful to give and trust. God bless you as we honor him with our gifts tonight. Brother SBN. If he doesn't mind to pray, ask God's blessing on the offering this evening. Be seated. And then. Thank you very much for the music tonight. Take your Bibles if you have them, and turn to the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy, chapter number six. As you find your place, sir, if you wouldn't mind, join me in standing in honor of reading God's word, Deuteronomy Chapter six. First number six. Deuteronomy, chapter six, verse number six. Bible says this says, in these words which I command this day shall be in nine heart, thou shall teach them diligently under thy children and shall talk of them when thou citizen nine house when I walk east, by the way, lies down and when thou rises up, let's pray and ask God's blessing on this time together. Or I ask you to help us now as we look into your word that you give me the words you got me to say. You know the folks that are here to listen here to their lives. Words in Jesus name, I pray he meant. Thank you may be seated. I mentioned this morning we want to take the next couple of weeks to go over some things having to do with the youth ministry and the philosophy that we as a church endeavor to follow as we minister to teenagers. And some of this stuff will apply to other ministries as well. But as we anticipate the coming of Brother Clarence and Miss Britney, we want to try and do some groundwork to prepare our minds, make sure we're all on the same page as to what we expect from our youth group, the youth program, the youth ministry here at the church. I'm curious how many of you had the privilege of growing up with a church youth group that you were able to attend? How many of you were not involved in a church youth group as a teenager? OK, so I say we're split maybe 60 40, not quite 50 50. I did have the opportunity to grow grow up in church, but the youth group that I spent the majority of my time in was not super active. And so we didn't do a whole lot. And there was a small church. And so it was kind of strange. When God put me in youth ministry, I didn't really have anything to go off of because I didn't have a whole lot of experience going to youth ministry, youth events, that kind of stuff. And so I had to do a lot of reading, rely on other people's ideas. And so but anyways, the Lord helped us out. A Christian youth group is a wonderful thing. Um, a group of teenagers that are fellowshipping together, united by their love for Jesus, their desire to follow him, serve him, obey him to grow in their faith. Youth group can be a great time in a young person's life. There are many wonderful friendships and memories which can be made during this time. I can can't help but think of my time as a youth pastor. The different stories of kids doing crazy things, eating crazy things, convincing them to do all kinds of weird stuff just because there was enough pressure and they decided, OK, I'll give it, I'll go ahead and do it. I can think of times where kids unfortunately got hurt playing different games, regular occurrences, busted for heads and bonked heads and just all kinds of stuff happened in the teen ministry, summer camp missions, trips, youth activities. All of these provide opportunities for teenagers to not only have fun, but make connections with other Christian teenagers in a safe and positive environment. Now, we understand that youth ministry is not solely about fun and games. But. Fun and games do build relationships when you're having fun together. It does build a camaraderie, a brotherhood between the teenagers, and it's important for our young people to be able to trust their youth pastor, to know that their youth pastor is on their side, that his wife is on their side, someone that they can go to when they are in need. It's good for them to have youth workers that are not there because they're paid to be there. I know I've told you the story before about the parent who came up to my me and my youth workers. At the end of a long night, we'd been out taking the kids into Georgetown, which is there near D.C. We'd done ice skating. We'd been out for quite a while. And we get back and the parent goes to a youth worker. No one says, thank you so much for investing in my son, because to youth worker number two and says thank you so much for giving up your night to invest in our children. And he goes to me and he says, I don't have to say thank you to you. You got paid to be here tonight. Well, thanks, appreciate the encouragement, but U.S. workers are important, someone that is there because they just love teenagers and they're not paid to be there. It's not part of their job. They just want to invest in the lives of young people, youth, pastors, families, the youth workers. They're there for the teens when they need someone to talk to, someone to cry with, someone that will pray for them. And so I know I'm grateful for the different youth workers that were involved in my my upbringing. And I'm grateful for the youth workers we have at our church as well. As important as a thriving youth ministry is, I think we all understand that the youth ministry, the youth group, can never replace the role and responsibility that parents have at home. There is absolutely no way that a youth pastor, no matter how skilled, no matter how dedicated, there is no way that they can replace what is supposed to be happening at home. Brother Clarence and I have been working on his philosophy of youth ministry with him coming here, and I want to read you something that he wrote in the most recent edition of this that he sent me. He says the youth pastor is a parent helper. Youth ministry is not a child care program, nor does the responsibility for training up a child in the way he should go fall upon the youth program. That responsibility belongs to the young person's parents. So we can't replace you, but what are we here for then? Well, we are here to assist you. We want to reinforce the biblical lessons that you are teaching at home. Youth ministry, church really in general is kind of like a vitamin. It's a great supplement, but you can't make a whole meal out of it, and if you're relying just on the supplement to be your whole spiritual nutrition, then spiritually you're not getting everything you need. And the same is true with our teenagers. We are the supplement, not a balanced meal. We want to be not the primary source of biblical training, but that second outside voice that echoes what mom and dad have already said. I can't tell you how many times I've had a parent sitting in my office with a teenager and I'll say something along the lines of counsel for them and the mom and dad will say, that's exactly what we've been saying at home. That's the way youth ministry is supposed to work, we are supposed to be there to back up, to reinforce, to be that second voice supporting what mom and dad are trying to teach at home. And so our goal for youth ministry here at the Baptist Tabernacle has many different facets. We're going to talk about six different things that we want to accomplish, not all tonight. So don't get nervous. But it's a multipronged approach which can all basically be summed up by saying that we want to introduce teenagers to the life and teachings of Jesus. We want them to see how Jesus lived as an example for us, and we want to make sure that they are aware of the teachings that he gave us throughout his word. To accomplish this, we do we have six core values or six things that we believe are important and will shape the way we do ministry these values, if I could list them for you, are biblical teaching, fellowship, family, service, mission and love. Tonight, we're going to look at just the first two Bible teaching and fellowship back in Deuteronomy. Chapter six, verse number six, we see that Moses is rehearsing for the Jewish people, the commandments of God. And he says, listen, it's important that not only do you need to have these in your heart, but you need to share them with your children as well. Now, I would say parents, that if you are going to be the primary investor in your child's spiritual discipleship, it's important for you to be a disciple as well. Moses didn't start by saying teach the kids and tell them this. He said first that they need to have these lessons in their hearts as adults. I took this out of my notes, but God seems to be bringing it back, so I want to say it anyways. But it is the responsibility of Christian adults to disciple the next generation. We all bear that responsibility to some form, maybe your children are grown. That doesn't mean you're free from the responsibility of training the next generation. The Bible's very clear in the New Testament that it is the responsibility of the older adults to train up the younger people. And so as a church, we need to have this mentality that those of us that have been through in a time of our lives, we didn't train the ones who are coming up behind us, obviously. Thirty two. I'm not teaching by experience. Those of you that are in your 50s, I can give you biblical principles, but I've never lived through my 50s someday now I have lived through my 20s and I have lived through my teenage years so I can help some of them through by experience. But anyways. The parent has to have it first before they can then pass it on to the next generation. You realize that our children do not inherit the Bible genetically. I mean, just because you were a Christian, just because your grandparents were Christians, you know, you go out knocking on doors and say, hey, we're from the Baptist Tabernacle, we'd like to invite you to our church. Oh, hey, you know what? My my granddad was a Baptist preacher. Great. Did you go to church now? OK, well, Granddad's being a Baptist preacher isn't helping you a whole lot, then. All right, I mean, the the training, the Bible training that our kids receive is something that has to be intentional. If I could say this, the Bible training that our teenagers and our children receive, it needs to be comparable to the worldly training that they are receiving. I'm not just talking about sinful training, training to rebel or to to do wrong, I'm not talking about that exclusively, although that is a part of it. The fact of the matter is we spend a lot of time training our children to do a lot of different stuff. There's just this past week has recently taken an interest in football and tennis, all right. Normally we play baseball and soccer. Now he wants to practice football and tennis. So at night I come home, we go outside, we throw the football and we come home. Alicia goes out. She takes a little tennis rackets. He has. And they hit the tennis ball back and forth. I mean, it's not like hard core training, but it's time spent together. And I just had to ask myself, is he getting the Bible training at home equal to the level of sports training is getting at home. So while they're at school a lot, I mean, you expect me to spend an equal amount of time training them in the Bible as they're getting training in school to do math and science and reading? All, you're the parent, so, I mean, I already said, I'm not here to replace you, that's your business. But I would say this if your child is daily being trained in other areas, they ought to be daily trained in the Bible. How many hours or minutes that translates into your context? That's up to you, you'll have to answer to God for that. But I would say this if your child is being taught daily how to do other things, you ought to spend some time daily talking about the Bible. Talking about the Bible, reading the Bible, letting them ask questions about the Bible, memorizing the Bible, I mean, it is important if we're our kids are going to grow up to to serve God, to be disciples of Christ, to to live in a world that is only getting weirder. Then they've got to be having daily infusions of God's word, many of you have followed, along with the whole ordeal to my dad's gone through with his his muscles deteriorating, his body eating away at his muscle structure. They found a treatment. But in order for that treatment to work, he has to go to weekly infusions where they stick this this medicine in him. It's almost like chemo to stop his body from eating. It's eating itself. Well, why do we think that we can live in this world with the effects of the flesh and not have daily infusions of God's word in our life? Every day that you and I get up and and ignore God and neglect God, we're saying, look, Lord, I don't need you today. I've got this one. So I think if I could go back and say this before you can teach it to your kids, you've got to be doing it yourself. This is even start to deal with the issue of the youth pastor. He gets two hours a week. Two hours a week, Sunday school, Wednesday night. That's it. Does any logical, reasonable human being actually expect the two hour a week youth pastor, that's all they ever work, is two hours a week. To undo everything that the world has done over the course of the other seven days. How can the youth pastor undo or address everything that a teenager has been exposed to the rest of the week in just two hours? They can't. That's why they're the supplement. They're in addition, they're not the main course. That's why we can only partner with you as parents, we can't replace you. Our teenagers are in a wide variety of educational circumstances. The Christian schoolkid, the public school kid. Parents, you understand that? You're not with your child, the majority of their waking hours, another adult is. If your child is home schooled, then, yes, you are probably with them the majority of their waking hours. Besides their teacher. If that's the case, there's no one else that has as great an influence on your child and their spirituality than you do. And it is your responsibility as their parent. To train them, to follow God. We want what I believe you want, that is for our children to be growing in their confidence of what is in the Bible. You see, biblical illiteracy is at an all time high among adults, but you realize an adult doesn't become biblically illiterate when they hit adulthood. This this is the result of a an adult growing through childhood and their teen years without learning the Bible. That is something that we want to address in our church, something that we want to combat. We don't want our our seniors to graduate from high school to go to college biblically illiterate. I want to read some quote, some statistics for you. These are from Lifeway Research. They found this only 20 percent of Americans say they've read the entire Bible at least once, only twenty two percent say they systematically read through a section of the Bible a little bit each day. I can deal with the 20 percent haven't read through the Bible, but the fact that only twenty two percent read their Bible purposefully every day. That's that's pretty scary. A third of Americans never read the Bible on their own. Fewer than half. Forty seven percent say that the Bible is 100 percent accurate in all that it teaches. Half of the Americans that were polled say that the Bible was written for each person to interpret as he or she chooses. There was this thing, though, Scripture's, given private interpretation, something something like, I don't know. Seventy four percent of Americans disagree with the idea that even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation. Seventy three quarters of Americans say just a small sin that doesn't damn you to hell. Seventy seven percent say that people must contribute their own effort for personal salvation, and fifty two percent say good deeds help them earn a spot in heaven. The. We want to help your child to know what's in the Bible, not just like the American Christianity, the the marketable consumer idea of what Christianity is, but what actually is in the Bible. And so to do that, Brother Matt and I have talked about this and I have talked about this, the clearance and I have talked about this. There are three different types of Bible teaching that we want to employ in our ministry. The first type of Bible teaching that we want to expose your children to is devotional Bible teaching. Devotional Bible teaching is the type of teaching that takes the Bible and shows your child shows your teenager how it can change their life. A very basic example would be thou shalt not kill. What does that mean, kids? Well, it means you don't kill anybody. It's devotional. It's its life application from the Bible. Axillary 19 says this Peter speak and he says Repent you therefore and be converted. That is life change that comes from the Bible. On Sunday mornings, we're going through a book with our young adults talking about morality and where morality comes from. And a lot of people that don't believe the Bible will say, well, morality is just based on, you know, don't do anything that would hurt somebody else. That's morality. Morality is a much deeper issue than just don't hurt other people. There are internal things that have to be true in order for you to live by that, and then you have to have a motivation for it. As you know, there's an eternal judge that's going to hold you accountable for what you do. The Bible changes our lives, someone 19 nine says wherewithal shall young man cleanse his way? How can a young man cleanse his way? Quoting songs by taking heat there, too, according to that word, one of the reasons why I'm excited about us starting our Awana program back is because it provides an opportunity for our young people to memorize many, many, many verses that will be placed into their into their mind and into their spirit that God can then bring up and use further down the road to help protect them. We want devotional Bible teaching, Bible teaching that applies the Bible to their life, helps them with life change. The second type of Bible teaching that we want is apologetic Bible teaching, Bible teaching that promotes their ability to defend what they believe, something that they can take home, something they can take to school or take to college use when they're with their friends so that their faith is not just, well, that's what mom said or that's what my my church says, but so that they can take the Bible and say, I believe this because this is what the Bible says. First, two, three, 15. Peter's right. And he says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meanness and fear. As a teenager, I was home schooled. And if you were ever home schooled as a teenager, you know that very quickly. You get pretty adept at defending why your parents home schooled you, because they're like, why are you home schooled? Why would your parents do that to you? The correct question is not why would your parents do that to you? It's why would your parents do that to themselves? It's definitely harder on the parent than it is the child. But you get you get pretty good at giving an answer. Our kids need to be able to give an answer for why they believe what they believe. I mean, most people don't like talking about spiritual things. I think the reason for that is because most people don't have a good grasp on why they actually believe what they believe. And when our teenagers graduate and go into college, go into adulthood, we want them to be prepared to give some answers. So why we give away the book that we give away when they graduate. And there's actually a teen book that just came out. I'm excited to read and just to see see what it says. And so we want devotional life change teaching. We want to apologetic, defense oriented teaching. And then finally, we want systematic teaching and organized overview of what's in the Bible, Paul said. In twenty twenty seven, he says, I'm not shunned to declare to you all the Council of God. Are there harder passages to reach out of in easier passages to reach out of? Yeah, sure. But do we get to avoid the hard ones just because they're hard? No, I'm a strong believer in this statement. You get what you expect out of people, including teenagers. You get what you expect. You expect them to be rebellious and goofus and not to care, not to be worth anything. Well, that's what you'll probably get. But if you expect that the young people are sitting in front of, you can understand and can think through what you're talking about and have a grasp on the subject matter, then it may take them a minute, but they'll get it. We want systematic, organized overviews of what's in God's word, they need to have an idea of, you know, the history of the Bible, the places in the Bible, how even how we got our Bible. I mean, these are all things that are important for our young people to receive. It's not just Jesus is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. OK, go home. Eat some baby food. All right, go home. We want to give them something of substance, something that will stick with them throughout the week, and I believe that together parents and the church working together, we can fulfill our responsibility to raise our children to be first and foremost followers of Jesus. Eternally, that's what's going to matter the most, right? Eternally, that's the most important thing, if your child only was going to live seventy five years or whatever and then they were just annihilated, they ceased to exist after they died, then yeah, go do whatever you want, live however you want, live it up. This is your only chance. Just go do whatever. You know, we we look at things that are bigger than us. I mean, we've got veterans in our church who believe that the United States of America was something that transcended just their their one life, and so they were willing to sacrifice their own lives to defend an idea to defend the United States of America, the freedoms that we enjoy. But do you realize this when America is long, long, long gone, the individual will still exist. You are an eternal soul. Some of the things that we sacrifice spiritual things for aren't going to matter at all in light of eternity. I mean, 10 million years after the Earth's history has ended, and based on your either acceptance or rejection of Jesus, you're either in heaven enjoying all of the pleasures that are there or perhaps, God forbid, you're in the lake of fire. Some of the stuff that is so important to us, it won't even register. Some of the stuff that we have sacrificed and spent our time on and made sure we drilled into our kids heads, it won't matter when we're in eternity. We want to train our children to be followers of Jesus. So Bible teaching is. Primary importance in our youth ministry. The second thing that I want to talk to you quickly about is fellowship. We believe that Christian fellowship is essential in the life of a Christian teenager. Fellowship is a bit of a lost word. When we were redesigning our website, it was asking us all these questions about, you know, the church and who we are and what we stand for and all that kind of stuff. And I mentioned the word fellowship. And it's like, do you really think anybody knows what fellowship means anymore? As I thought about, I was like, you know, you're probably right, because right now, if I was to talk about fellowship, we would probably start thinking about food. Hanging out after church, talking in the foyer, having somebody over to the house, we would say, oh, that's fellowship. Now that's socializing, socializing and fellowship are not the same. Fellowship is more about brotherhood, it's about camaraderie, it's about mutual support and mutual burden bearing, it's about two people that are walking the same direction and helping one another carry the load that they're trying to carry. And acts chapter two and three thousand new converts were added to the church on the day of Pentecost, the Bible says that they continued steadfastly and the apostles doctrine and what? Fellowship. The Christians have always needed fellowship, we have always needed the support of other believers, we say this sometimes when somebody is going through a crisis. I don't know how anybody goes through a time like this without their church family. You've been through a crisis with a church family, you know, the support that comes with having them rally around you, perhaps some of you have experienced going through a crisis without a church family and feeling the loneliness and the loss of what do you do next? Paul thanked the Philippians Church and Philippians one five. He says, I thank you for your fellowship in the Gospel. Fellowship is something that people who are walking in the same direction can participate in together. I want you to think about your teenager for a second. Or our teenagers, if you don't have one. Our teenagers fellowship with a lot of people. We might call them their peers. There's been a pretty seismic shift in a teenager's ability to develop a camaraderie with somebody since when I was in high school. And I don't know, you may look at me and think this guy is like one foot in the grave, he's so ancient, I've never seen somebody so old, but I don't feel that old man. I can remember my high school years pretty clearly. They don't feel like they were that long ago. But when I compare my high school, my junior high experience to the junior high and high school experience of our kids are going through now, it is vastly different. You know. If my parents were going to worry about me doing something to get in trouble, like tipping cows, you were here this morning. Then it would most likely be with people that I was physically with. I was limited in the people who could affect me based on who was around me at the time. But today, that is not necessarily the case, modern teenagers can fellowship with people all over the world. It's not just that you have to be concerned about, I mean, the kids at school that they're hanging around, you've got to be concerned with who are they hanging around digitally? Who they're hanging around on their phones and on their laptops or on their video game systems, you realize that a lot. A lot a lot of teenage boys only have social interaction with the people that they game with. Like. I mean, we have teenagers here, you probably know people like that, I mean, they could not talk to you face to face if their life depended on it. But you stick a headset and a controller in their hand and all of a sudden they come to life. I love my brother, Joe. Joe, 10 years younger than me, Joe is a gamer. Listen to some of the things that come out of his mouth when he's playing his video games, I'm like, who are you? Of course, you know, he's playing these games and he's like saying these words that are just nonsense, made up words and I'm like, What are you doing? So that's when I feel old, like, uh. What we want for our teenagers when they come to youth group, we want to provide an avenue for them to make connections with other Christian teenagers who are growing up in homes that are not too dissimilar from the home that you're trying to raise your teenager in. See that fellowship, that camaraderie, that mutual burden bearing and that mutual support goes beyond teenager to teenager. It should go from parent parent. I mean, how many of your kids said, well, Johnny's mom? Well, I'm not Johnny's ma. But how nice is it when Johnny's mom is saying to Johnny some of the same things you're going to say to your kid? That's what we want, and our youth group is for like minded families and like minded teenagers to be able to get together and realize, oh, you know what? I'm not the only weird one. That's why I love taking our kids to camp, youth conferences, youth rallies, because they go and they're around other youth groups and they see, oh, not only is my family not the only weird family, our church isn't the only weird church. There's a whole bunch of weird churches out there. Here's the thing, they're going to be they're going to be pressed, they're going to be attacked, they're going to be mocked based on what they believe, and church should be a place where they can come and they can get support from the other teenagers that are there. Their teenage years do not have to be years of rebellion and selfishness. I believe the youth group can help teenagers to learn how to be selfless, to care about others, not just care about themselves, to see the needs of others, not just see their own needs. You know, when Jesus said, you know, how shall I know that you're my disciples, but your love for one another, there was not an age limit on that. So many times we read the Bible and we just automatically read into it adult context. But Christianity is not just an adult religion. Fact is, by and large, a child's religion. Most people that come to Christ come to Christ as a child, so our teenagers growing up as Christians and Jesus expects them to portray some of the same Christian traits that you and I are to portray as adults. Are we going to fund things? Absolutely. There's all kinds of fun stuff to do with teenagers, and I believe that having fun together, laughing together, doing things that maybe you didn't think you could do, and then you discover, hey, we did do it. I feel like that helps build the Brotherhood to build the camaraderie and help them trust one another. Those those road trips to camp. Those are good times when they're there at camp and they're spending time together, they're playing the games, it's hot and sweaty, it's humid, you know, it's Monday and they're covered from head to toe that builds connections between them. So that when that friend, that that new kid in the youth group goes forward to pray, all of a sudden he's got a brother, she's got a sister that comes and prays with them. That fellowship, that brotherhood, that camaraderie that all of us need. And then maybe our teenagers need the most. Now, when? Rahmat came and we started doing some things that we hadn't been able to do before. We can have all of the events. We can have all the services. If your child's not there for it. They don't benefit. Right. The Clarence is going to come, you might not do the same events that brother Matt has been doing. He might run his youth services a little bit different than brother that's been running. But I believe that they've got the same goal in mind to teach the Bible to develop strong Christian relationships. Do you have the best program going if your teenagers are not there for it, they don't benefit? Don't come to me and say, Pastor, we don't like the youth group, our kid doesn't have any friends, I say, well, how many services they go into? Well, we got a lot going on, so we really haven't been making it. When's the last time you went to a teen activity? Well, you know, they just had worked with our schedule. So I mean. You're not going to get the benefit of the youth group youth ministry unless your present. So the clearance comes, brother Matt finishes out his time as the youth pastor here, you want your child to benefit from these goals, these values that we're trying to instill in them, which I believe are just a reflection of what you're already trying to do at home. We try to help you, you can help us making sure your young person is there. It's the only way they're going to get to know the other teenagers. The only way they're going to benefit from the consistent Bible preaching that I know is going on in their. So we can work together. As a team. You have the primary responsibility. But we want to come alongside, do what we can to help. So I don't have a teenager, this doesn't affect me, I wish to now that I wouldn't have said what I was preaching on this morning. Because I'm sure there were some people who are like, I got a teenager. I'd be there. You don't have a teenager. Would you commit to praying for our youth group? For the teenagers that are a part of our church facing the attacks of Satan. Just the same as you would a couple of different tactics, but just the same as you. Would you pray for them, you pray for our youth workers, they'd have wisdom, lots of patience. God would bless them, use their ministry. Praise the Lord for the growth we've seen in our children's ministry, don't you, I mean, overflowing with kids. Those kids are going to keep growing. Like we did today, they're going to start promoting up into that youth group. So it's important that we continue to build on the foundation that's been laid and see this youth ministry continue to grow and develop young people to be not just good citizens, not good competitors, but disciples and followers of Jesus Christ. That's our that's our goal. I believe that your goal as well, so let's pray for one another. Let's support one another in this task. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the good attention of your people. Or we thank you for. The teenagers that come faithfully to this church, thank you for the Matt and Miss Leah and the work that they've done over the last two years to help get our program off the ground, to get it going in the right direction. I pray that she would bless them for their investment. Lord, I pray that you'd be with Brother Clarence and Miss Brittany as they are preparing to come and join us to work with our teenagers. I pray that you would give him the wisdom and the patience and the strength that he will need and she will need for this task. Lord, I pray for the families of our young people, the moms and dads, grandparents, even some great grandparents, Lord, doing their best to train their children to follow you. I pray that you you would hold them up with your hand. Did you give them the wisdom they need with this very difficult task, Lord, that they would have the strength and the knowledge to do what's right for their children, to put the importance and the emphasis on following you and not all of the other distractions that are so readily available. God, I pray that we would see great fruit, the children and Youth Ministry of this church for many years to come in. Jesus name that I ask these things. Amen. Let's all stand. We're going to page one thirty eight wherever he leads. God has spoken to your heart. You want to take some time even there at your seat. To pray for the youth ministry, pray for your teenager, the teenagers of this church, whatever the case may be, the math seems if God has spoken your heart burden your heart about something, you do business with him as we see.

Speaker 1: Up cross handphone. Oh, boy. To. To sign the surrender roll to the.

Unidentified: Wherever he leads, I'll go.

Speaker 1: Oh, my Christ, who loves me, so wherever he leads, I'll go.

Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much for being here tonight. It is a blessing to have you in the service and I hope that you have a good start to your week tomorrow. Everybody's favorite day Monday. Yeah, but trust. God bless you, give you opportunity to serve him and to be in prayer for one another and in prayer for the ministry of the church here, I did want to say, if you did not get one of the handouts from the nursery meeting, there are some available on the welcome desk in the back. Those are provided to us through our insurance company just to give us some helpful tips on how to have a safe nursery. So please grab one of those. And then if you did come to the safety team meeting a couple of weeks ago, there is a schedule also available at the welcome desk and you can grab one of those on your way out. Also, hope that God blesses you and the man you come closest in a word of prayer. Once he's done, you'll be dismissed.

Speaker 3: For all those going to camp, sorry, I just woke some people up, uh, for all those going to camp. Uh, we have a meeting coming up June the 2nd. It's on a Wednesday night. We'll meet at prior, not prior after the service. Let's pray, father in Heaven. Thank you for the day that you've given us the Lord and, um, Lord being a parent. Lord, I understand that the role in which you've given us, um, is not to be taken lightly and God, we have such a privilege to raise up, um. Uh, the blessings that you've given us and God help us not to. Just, uh, push that responsibility on anyone else, but Lord help us to raise up a godly seed unto the Lord and. I think in my family, I think at the teens here, I think of the boys and girls that are here, Lord. The we need to be praying for them and and praying God to protect them and all those things would help us to trust you to work in their lives. So I pray that we would rely on you and depend on you. Or that we would see the next generation follow you. Lord, help us throughout this week and Jesus and I pray a man.

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